Natural Disasters

After the water receded, things settled down and Alberta politicians began the task of looking at how to prevent a repeat of the 2013 floods, one of the policy tools to emerge was use of voluntary buyouts for those located…

When you think about it, it is quite remarkable to see just how many times communities have dodged rather large bullets due to near misses (or, as George Carlin aptly called them, near hits) from natural catastrophes. Every so often we…

Hundreds of thousands of homes across Canada have sump pump systems, designed to collect water from the weeping tiles and safely eject it away from the foundation. These systems are a major source of property damage claims for Canadian personal…

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) and the State of California have teamed up to create a pilot program to provide homeowners in parts of the state with a financial incentive to brace and bolt their homes to prevent them from sliding off their foundations or toppling over in the event of an earthquake.

As this headline indicates, 2015 may go down as the worst year ever for wildfires in British Columbia. While, to date, insured damages have been relatively low (despite 29 homes being lost in Rock Creek), suppression costs have been well…

Chestermere, Alberta, located due east of Calgary on the TransCanada, was hit with fairly severe overland flooding and sewer backup as the result of not one, but two, recent heavy rainfall events within days of each other. The first, early…

In February, Aviva Canada announced its plan to offer an overland flood endorsement to homeowners in Ontario and Alberta. True to its word, the company launched its Overland Water Endorsement early last week. The endorsement is available to Aviva’s policyholders…

A major complaint levelled against the insurance industry is that it has failed to provide coverage for consumers who, through no fault of their own, have seen their homes and belongings destroyed by flood. With the announcement by Co-operators that…

On May 8, ICLR unveiled its latest home retrofit project, this time in Windsor, Ontario. The home was retrofitted to reduce (we never say eliminate) the risk of basement flooding. Again, ICLR chose Emergency Preparedness Week (May 3 to 9)…

The National Building Code and the building codes of each province and territory in Canada are some of the best in the world, as are local building inspection practices. And Canadian homebuilders most certainly construct some of the best homes in the world.

But there is always room for improvement, and as severe weather gets fiercer and more pervasive, this need will only become more acute.

Once again a big storm was forecast, once again, it failed to materialize (at least for many New Yorkers and New Jerseyans) and once again meteorologists are being criticized for dropping the ball. What’s more, weather models are also being blamed for at least part of the failure and people are, of course, again making the statement “If I was as wrong as often as the weather man, I’d be out of a job.”

Some are calling 2014 a quiet – even a ‘reprieve’ – year for Canadian catastrophe losses. But when you put the year’s $880+ million up against 2013’s $3.2 billion, of course it will look like a quiet year (even a…

On December 11, the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) rolled out its latest retrofit home to the media. The home in Burlington, Ontario was retrofitted to reduce the risk of basement flooding. ICLR chose Burlington because it was ground…

On October 16, the CBC published an online article entitled ‘Severe weather increasing insurance deductibles.’ Just a few days later, a small media outlet reprinted the piece, but changed the headline to ‘Climate change increasing insurance deductibles.’ This change highlights…